Pocatello. ID. Today huge thunderclouds grew in the record high temperatures of Idaho, SE Oregon, Nevada, Utah, Western Wyoming and Western Montana. The edge of one is grumbling over the mountain range I live under at Pocatello right now.
So far all the fire starts in parched Idaho, Wyoming, and much of Utah have been human caused. I think tonight and tomorrow might be the start of the worst forest fire season in the Northern Rockies in a long time. I’ll be following it on this blog.
With fire season underway, national forests thin on senior staff. San Jose Mercury News (you can find this AP story elsewhere by Google News)
Update 1. Highest temperature ever in Missoula. Mercury in Missoula cracks triple digits. Missoulian. By Kim Briggeman.
Update 2: Yesterday, there was one major fire in Idaho. Today there are 12! Nevada had one major fire yesterday. Today there are nine.
Update 3: Heat wave fuels Western wildfires. Yahoo News. AP
Ralph Maughan
Dr. Ralph Maughan is professor emeritus of political science at Idaho State University. He was a Western Watersheds Project Board Member off and on for many years, and was also its President for several years. For a long time he produced Ralph Maughan's Wolf Report. He was a founder of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition. He and Jackie Johnson Maughan wrote three editions of "Hiking Idaho." He also wrote "Beyond the Tetons" and "Backpacking Wyoming's Teton and Washakie Wilderness." He created and is the administrator of The Wildlife News.
I’ll be watching too…I had to pick THIS year to move into the forest.
I hope for the best. Maybe I should consider moving my truck and camper away from the trees.
We live in eastern utah about 15 miles from the huge fire here, everything is so dry and the damage that this fire has brought about is incredible, We will never recover the places we love in our lifetime and possible in our childrens lifetime, the sagebrush , cedar, and pinion trees don’t recover like other forests, I hope all are being really careful as all the west is really dry and this could happen anywhere!
I’m having very violent weather here in Cascade, Idaho right now with lightning, wind and very light rain. It was 95° today and I won’t be surprised if I wake up to raging fires someplace nearby.